


dream a little dream of me

by eternalwind



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Bittersweet, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, i tried to write the sads appreciating the cat boy we left behind so here it is, pining G'raha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 17:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19977937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalwind/pseuds/eternalwind
Summary: He dreams, he hears, he feels, he thinks...and he yearns.





	dream a little dream of me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the softs, so now it's time for a bit of sads (pardon my English, I try my best)

When it starts, it's faint: barely a whisper that reaches G'raha's sensitive ears. He feels them twitch and it's then when he realizes that he's _floating_. Is he dreaming? He feels like he is, and a part of him scolds him, sounding strangely vivid, that _this is no time for sleeping._

Where is he?

Another sound, crystalline and light, reaches him and G'raha Tia _remembers_ , opening his eyes and meeting nothing but the dark.

A world of darkness, Nero, a pair of striking red eyes staring back at him in the mirror, a painful decision and a burden that feels like it'll break him _but he takes it_ , a big blue and golden door and his friends, looking at him with worry and–

and your eyes, filled with sadness and love but putting on a brave smile as you watch him go and close the Crystal Tower behind him, not daring to look back else he will ask for _just a few more seconds, just a few more_. There's a pang of regret in his chest and the urge to call out to you, but a part of him knows that he's _alone_ , as the Tower had asked that he should be.

"I'm asleep, aren't I?" his lips move but from his throat comes no sound, yet he can hear his voice as clear as day echoing back at him from everywhere in the dark.

None replies in the solitude of wherever he is in Crystal Tower, _obviously_ , he thinks, and G'raha wonders if his time to wake is close. _How long has it been?_ It feels like he's just woken from a nap, and yet his body weighs as if he has been asleep for a few years.

The whispering gets louder. It comes from everywhere around him and G'raha tries to discern the voice ( _it_ _feels so familiar)_ , but he can't and it frustrates him, ears twitching again and tail flicking in annoyance.

He tries once more, holding on to a glimmer of hope to see everyone again. To see _you_ , his favourite Warrior, again. A part of him begs the Tower to let him go, while his blood screams here is where he should stay, sleeping in the Tower as his duty commands. "Is it time for me to wake...?"

The Tower answers him using his voice, sounding strangely weary. It's weird and it sets his hair in edge, hearing his own voice like that.

_No._

_But there is something you should see._

There's a blinding flash of blue light as G'raha tries to scream, and then there is darkness no more.

* * *

Where previously was nothing but darkness around him, now stands a crystal wall, firm and bright and reaching as far as his eyes allow him to see. There's a powerful magic emanating from it, making G'raha's body tingle everywhere and beckoning him like an old friend. It feels ancient, intimidating but familiar at the same time. In a haze, G'raha extends an arm towards it and–

An image begins to form in its surface: a whirlwind of colours taking form and he recognizes the shape of the Crystal Tower he's asleep in, standing proud and shining against the night sky, but...

G'raha frowns, leaning closer to make sure he's seeing right. "That's not Mor Dhona."

The world he sees feels different, foreign, but the crystal wall ignores his want to explore and follows a path towards the Crystal Tower anyways, leaving G'raha to do no more than to keep watching, wondering why the Crystal Tower is showing him this.

_I'm not the Tower, my friend._

G'raha jumps, startled, or at least he thinks he does in this strange floating state he's in.

It's his own voice, again, replying to him. Curiosity gets the better of him before he can help himself.

"Who are you, then?"

_You'll see._

The wall flashes again in the corner of his eye, catching his attention and when he looks–

G'raha sees you.

It's all it takes for him to get as close as he can against the cold wall, ignoring how it burns against his skin. His beloved friend, the one he'd bickered with, fought with and admired– still admires– the most, looking around in a strange circular room that glows with blues and goldens, with a beautiful star map of the shards on the ground. A part of him recognizes the room within the Tower, despite not having entered there yet.

_The Ocular_ , his own voice echoes, answering the question unable to leave his throat.

"That's–"

_Within the Tower, yes._ His own voice sounds slightly amused. G'raha is beginning to grow more annoyed at it. _But you feel it, don't you? How far away our Warrior is?_

He doesn't bother to reply to the voice only stares as he takes your sight in: you look a couple of years older than he remembers, nothing more, but way more weary and tired, armor battered and worn as if you'd just fought two whole armies with a side dish of behemoths.

Then it sinks, how far away you are ans how far he's from home, lost in time still, waiting to be fully awoken.

"You're not here, are you...?" He asks at your reflection as he sees you walk in circles around the beautiful room, wringing your hands together and making a mess of your gloves, as if waiting for something. It's so you he can't help but chuckle despite that the very sight of you is eating him inside with longing, but G'raha can't look away. "Are you a memory?"

_No,_ the echo replies once again. _It's the present of a future that will no longer come to pass._

That, he does not like. "What do you mean?"

_Watch._

G'raha obeys, and what he sees leaves him petrified.

He sees someone familiar–so familiar it leaves warning bells ringing in his head–walking into the Ocular, the mere sight of them making you smile brilliantly, giving a welcoming gesture and a tight hug causing the person to stagger and shake with laughter he cannot hear. A crystallized arm pulls you tighter into the hug and G'raha realizes–

It's him.

Himself, with his own red hair and eyes, wearing strange robes and the stance of a leader, with white streaks decorating the ends of his hair and braid and crystal covering the skin of his neck, down to his right arm–

G'raha lifts his right hand up to his eyes: the fingertips are made of crystal, although it doesn't grow past his nails.

_He's you, and yet he's not. Not anymore._

G'raha ignores the voice, yet a part of him yearns to understand and the question escapes him before he can stop it even though he knows it can hurt him.

"What… what happened?"

The echo of his own voice no longer replies and G'raha pulls himself back to the wall. He wants to see you, he wants to talk to you like he– like that _version of himself_ is doing, he wants you to smile at him now like you're doing to him and make him laugh. Did you say something silly? Oh, he hopes you did. It hurts to see you so close to him, and yet…

The future?

"Will I…" he swallows, afraid of the answer. "Will I have this? Can I have this?"

_No._ His own voice sounds sad to tell him this and G'raha feels his heart sink. _When you wake, it'll be different for you due to the future your other self changed. The Warrior of Light's legacy will still be a beacon of hope, always our beacon, but their story will have ended as all stories do._

His heart is breaking.

It hits him like a punch in the stomach, so hard and painful that he almost doubles over. Warmth grows in his eyes, a sob choking his throat at the realization that he's seeing what he _wants most yet he's not allowed to have_ despite that same person in the vision is _himself._ He's here, in the Tower, trapped, sleeping and seeing a stupid vision about another self having something he yearns for, yet he cannot and will never have. It's so redundant and cruel, he'd rather see you _move on_ after he'd gone to sleep than _this_ and he wants nothing that to _stop looking stop looking stop looking–_

G'raha's hand reaches the crystal wall again, where he sees you gently caress his–the vision's his– hair, placing a gentle kiss at the corner of his lips, and he breaks, unable to stop.

"Why?" he asks his older self, tears blurring his vision as he chokes another sob. Seeing himself so embarrassed with your affections doesn't bring him any solace, and for once he just wants to be _selfish._ He tries to reach the voice, desperation growing within him "Why are you showing me this?! Who are you?!"

G'raha almost feels the voice hesitate. _I'm both of you. I'm also what you and he are not. I'm the lost link in time between you two._

_I'm what he wants to give you, because he's you and knows what you will not have._

G'raha blinks the tears away and forces himself to look at his older self in the crystalline surface, finding that you and he have moved places and are now walking through a garden in the quiet of the night. He has a weird staff in his hand and walks like he knows every corner and secret in the place–

_The Crystal Exarch_ , the voice says, and G'raha would laugh if he wasn't feeling so utterly miserable.

He looks harder, seeing you pick a flower and trying to sneak it on his head, but the one called Exarch grabs your hand mid-motion and brings it to his lips for a kiss. G'raha can't look anymore, so he closes his eyes and lets his head fall. He feels _so exhausted_. "He doesn't seem to spare a thought for me." 

_He does, subconsciously, but he does, ere I would not be here._

"I should be happy, I know I should," G'raha snaps as the urge to cry grows bigger and bigger to the point it suffocates him. _It's unfair_ , he thinks, _so unfair and make it stop, please–_

"But this won't be me, will it? It's not me, it'll _never be_ _me._ I won't ever live this. I'd already given up on seeing them again and fulfill my duty!" 

He points at the crystalline surface again, but he dares not look. "So why show me this?"

Silence answers him and he almost scoffs. He should be better, he knows, but when it comes to _you_ his feelings always managed to unravel all the control in the world he could, running wild though his body, even when he's asleep deep in the Tower.

That's how much you had an effect on him, and he'd known there was a chance he would wake with you gone, but he had to take it for the world and _hope–_ hope to wake and perhaps see you again, or at least find out that you'd lived a long and happy life, with deeds enough to inspire a whole army with a whisper of your name.

But this was too much to bear, to be so close and yet so far, to see you loving _him_ and yet _not him_ and not being able to experience it…

It breaks him.

_He wants to see how much you could love them, and how much they love you… And hope it's enough for when you wake._

G'raha feels the voice leave him alone, with only the crystal wall near him to keep him company. He wishes he could close his eyes and sleep some more, but at the same time he doesn't want to stop looking at you, what if it is the last time he can see you like living like that? If he's going to wake with you gone, he'd rather take what he can now.

He swallows, tired and with a broken heart, and braces himself to look again.

The Exarch is sitting next to you under a tree, his head leaning onto your shoulder as you gesture some tale to him, or so G'raha figures by your expressions. The Exarch, despite having his young features, looks like he's lived a few more lifetimes to G'raha, and he can't help but wonder from how long into the future he hails from.

Your hand is entwined with the Exarch's while you look at him with a soft expression on your face, showing a side you didn't usually show to people and fully unaware of the audience you're having. It's a private moment and it fills G'raha with longing once more, a yearning he knows he will never be able to sate. He extends his hand, but it bumps against the cold surface, leaving him dejected.

He can't reach you. He never will.

"You had it hard, didn't you…?" G'raha whispers to his other self. His body feels heavier as the time to say goodbye looms closer, but he fights against it for just a little longer. "But still, I envy you."

He feels the voice coming back.

_It's time_. 

"Will it stop hurting?"

It's a stupid question to ask himself, or _part_ -himself, G'raha doesn't know anymore, but he can't help it. If his other self has lived more, then–

_With time, it does._

He takes it, and saves the image of you gently kissing the top of his other self's head, near his ear, in his memory. It's a moment he never had and will never have, but he can pretend just this once.

Before falling deep into his dreams once more, he can almost feel your lips on his, and lets the tears fall with a smile, heart heavy in his chest.

"I love you too..."

* * *

You blink at the Exarch, worry clear in your face. You two had been resting under a tree in his garden the night after coming back from a trip the Source. All you wanted had been some peace and kiss the living daylights out of him after missing each other for the time you were gone. 

That was until you said you loved him and sudden tears started falling down his face, surprising the both of you in your peaceful moment.

"Are you okay, Raha?"

Despite being worried you can't help but take delight in the way his face reddens at his name, but confusion takes over him quickly enough.

"Aye, forgive me. I know not what came over me," he mumbles while you lean over to kiss the tears running down his crystallized cheek away. He gasps, making you smile at your little victory. "I–I suppose your words got to me..."

But he's smiling now, and all you can think is how lucky you are to have him living and breathing beside you, nothing but devotion filling his eyes and making your heart soar, and you're unable to hold back how you feel about him.

"I love you, you know?"

His smile grows wider as he looks at you, beautiful and happy and almost _cheeky_ , like his young self used to smile and it makes your heart stop, because during that brief second, you can _almost_ see his young self again grinning back at you in the camp in Mor Dhona.

"I know, my warrior, and I love you too."

**Author's Note:**

> tfw your future self from a calamity timeline gets the one you love instead of you and you probably won't see them ever again now that's the future's been averted and when humanity needs you they will probably be gone
> 
> i do feel we'll see our time g'raha again (but i don't like the price they're theorizing for it -the live of the exarch /lmao/-) but i like angsting, so, poof  
> 
> 
> ps: don't forget to leave flowers for our fav catboy near the tower, he's probably missing you a l o t and also needs affection


End file.
